


Queerly Platonic

by ironinfidel



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Humor, Queerplatonic relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 21:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironinfidel/pseuds/ironinfidel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale is sick of the local assumption that he and Crowley are romantically involved. He's cranky, Crowley's a bit sappy, everything is as ridiculous as you might expect. Written for Asexy April over on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queerly Platonic

**Author's Note:**

> Two things I should probably mention: 1) This is my first ever fanfiction, and 2) I'm not British. Apologies for any inaccuracies.

It is an inevitable fact of life that any two people with a close relationship will be assumed to have a romantic attachment. This rings doubly true if the parties involved have dramatically and heroically risked their lives for the sake of the other, and trebly true if the parties involved then settle down together in a cozy cottage in the South Downs. However, one could not find two man-shaped beings more eager to refute any of the above points than one A.J. Crowley and one A. Ziraphale, lately of London.

 

The Arrangement II: Electric Boogaloo, as named by Crowley in a moment of drunken levity shortly after its inception, was similar to its predecessor in many ways (“thou shalt increase efficiency by doing whatever work needs be done in one place, be it wiles or the thwarting thereof”), but with several new subsections of a distinctly different character (“thou shalt stop using my toothbrush, I haven't forgotten how to use that sword and I know where it is now”). Its final form fell somewhere between a business contract, a flatmate agreement, and a petty squabble between two children who both have red pens in hand. But eventually it was recognized by all parties to be a fair and equitable situation and given a home on the east wall of the sitting room in a rather gaudy frame that Crowley nicked from the Vatican sometime in the seventeenth century.

 

Despite their best attempts at creating an all-inclusive document in order to avoid unnecessary confrontation, it was nigh on impossible to encompass every issue of a domestic life, especially a domestic life shared by two immortal beings who were not supposed to be avoiding conflict with each other in the first place. Thusly the Arrangement II: Electric Boogaloo obtained several “expansion packs” detailing why it is not funny to swap all of Crowley's music files with Queen songs since that stopped happening twenty years ago and why eating while reading might earn one an inconvenient discorporation, as well as more mundane items such as who has to do the shopping and when (Aziraphale, as Crowley refused to buy anything he could simply make himself).

 

Aziraphale would have been lying if he said he hadn't considered taking the same route as his demonic friend. Not because he was that lazy (although he was), but because going into town was taking one's life into one's hands (and not only because letting the angel drive a car was a horrifying prospect). For Aziraphale, for all that he was a soldier of the Lord and all-around good guy, was not above petty anger or petty revenge. And being in public provided him with many opportunities for both.

 

“Good morning, Mr Crowley!” chirped the woman in the bakery of the local supermarket.

Sometimes he found himself longing for the anonymity of London.

“Good morning, Miss Walters,” he replied through a tightly clenched jaw.

“No Young Mr. Crowley this morning, then?” she asked with a disgustingly roguish wink.

“I'm afraid not. He had some begonias to shout at.”

With that, he wandered away, leaving one very nonplussed baker and a rack of suddenly stale bread in his wake.

 

He recieved the same reaction several more times. The second time, he tried to calm himself by thinking about the tolerance the people of this tiny hamlet showed to his percieved relationship with the demon who was likely out terrorizing the populace by this point in the day. It did not work. The third time, he attempted to tap into the unending font of mercy heavenly beings were supposed to be able to access. It did not work. The fourth time, he said a rude word to an elderly priest. It was at this point that Aziraphale realized he needed to go home and reevaluate his choices.

 

And so, he found himself back at home, nestled in his armchair with a cup of tea heated on the fires of his own rage, wondering why, exactly, he was so angry.

 

_The presumption of the whole thing, that must be it. Yes, that is a completely reasonable...reason...to be angry._

 

Aziraphale was glad no one was around to hear that one. 

 

_It's not that I have a problem with the concept. Or even the other individ--_

 

“Honey, I'm home!”

 

_Scratch that, fuck this guy._

 

“You don't have to do that every time, dear.”

Crowley snickered. “But I'm going to until you stop getting so bloody exasperated by it.”

“You know as well as I that that joke ceased to be funny long before you began using it.”

“Probably better than you, angel,” he said, sliding to the other side of the room and patting Aziraphale condescendingly on the head. Aziraphale gives him a non-committal grunt in response. “Whoa, you're actually upset about this,” Crowley noted with genuine surprise, his eyebrows leaping up from behind his shades like two dolphins springing forth from deep, black, Versace waters.

“I am not upset over your tired jokes, Crowley.”

“Good, because I really didn't want to stop using them. But you're in a right foul mood while holding a cup of tea in a room full of books, so something is going on.”

Aziraphale was briefly tempted, for the first time in a long time (several days) to smite Crowley on the spot. The demon took up residence on the nearby sofa in order to pester him in comfort.

“Angel. Aziraphale. What on Earth are you so worked up about?”

No response.

“I'm serious! I want to know! I'm not even going to laugh, or at least I'll try not to!”

A sharp look came his way.

“All right, fine, the heavy artillery, then,” he said with far too much solemnity. “I'll take off my sunglasses.”

 

Though the yellow eyes are reason enough to wear the sunglasses all the time, Aziraphale has long thought that it's also because without them, his corporation – all of his corporations, actually – looks disconcertingly young and vulnerable. He's often wondered if it was a purposeful choice, in order to tempt and wile those who weren't taken in by intimidation. It was certainly working on him.

“Four people called me 'Mr. Crowley' while I was in town today and I swore at a priest,” he admitted, grudgingly.

 

To his credit, Crowley did attempt not to laugh. It was a spectacular failure.

 

Five minutes later, he picked himself back off the floor and adjusted his suit, composure regained.

 

“Is that really what's got your knickers in a twist, angel?”

“There's no need to be so crude about it,” he frowned.

“Oh, do fuck off. Is it because I haven't taken you down the courthouse and made an honest woman out of you?”

“Heavens, no!”

“Looks like my influence is rubbing off on you again,” Crowley said with a shark's grin, “willing to live in sin with a servant of the Pit. Tut, tut, what would the Man Upstairs say?”

“Crowley, I assume He already knows. And we are not 'living in sin'!”

“Well, I certainly am.”

 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes dramatically at his friend's refusal to stop cracking wise.

 

“I just don't like the assumption that because we live together that we're 'together',” he says, complete with air quotes.

 

Without his shades, Crowley is surprisingly easy to read. Used to having his eyes covered, he has never learned to keep them composed, and his eyebrows jump around willy-nilly as he squints and widens his eyes as he thinks this through.

 

“Well, we are, in a way,” he said, finally.

“What are you talking about,” the angel answered, not bothering with the question mark.

“I don't mean like that! You're about as interested in that as I am."

"What about all of those orgies?"

"Did you really just say 'orgy'? Dear me. Trust me, it's not that hard to slip out of one of those. No one's really paying attention after a certain point. But on my original tack, we're clearly something. We've been living in the same house for decades and friends for centuries, for one thing."  He paused for a moment. "Two things."

“Because we were the only two immortal beings on the planet!”

“At first!” Crowley looked genuinely hurt by the insinuation that they were not truly friends. _There is no way he isn't using that look to tempt wayward souls,_ Aziraphale thought. “And we've been through a lot together. As in, most of Creation. We faced down the apocalypse together! I would have burned myself alive in your bloody bookshop if I wasn't fireproof! You once stabbed a bishop who got too close to me with a cup of water – which I may remind you wasn't even holy – actually, you were just pretty stab-happy back then, now that I think about it...” He looks pensive for a moment. “I've spent G-- who-knows-how-long helping you with your blessed books despite the fact that either of us could fix them up with a thought. You're always making tea just when I think to myself, gee, I could really use a cuppa right about now and you always seem to know when to booze it up, too. Sometimes I catch myself doing nice things when I'm not supposed to be doing them for you, and I've seen you pull your fair share of pranks – the one with the nuns is a personal favourite.  
I'm just going to jump into the deep end of looking like an utter twat and – stop looking at me like that, I'm supposed to use foul language – and tell you that I intend to lead your saved souls astray until the real Apocalypse, or until one of us is reassigned, someone forbid. I need you, you need me, you're my best friend and I don't think we should be apart.”

 

There was a very, incredibly, nine-months-in-with-sextuplets, pregnant pause.

 

“Are you proposing to me, Crowley, dear?”

 

Crowley punched him on the arm.

 

“Don't be an idiot. I'm just telling you, you're stuck with me. Platonically. Platonically stuck with me, from now until the end of forever.”

“My word, I didn't know you had it in you to be so poetic. I think I may swoon if you continue.”

“Shut it.”

“For the record, I love you too. _Platonically._ ”

“Good to know.” He returned his sunglasses to their rightful place on his nose and Aziraphale handed him a cup of tea that certainly hadn't been in existence a second ago. “Does this mean you'll hold my hand in public now?” he teased.

“Only if you're 'Mister Fell', I'm not using your name any more.”

“Oh, who's proposing now?”

“I think I've just begun to grasp why everyone thinks we're married.”

“The sleeveless jumpers aren't helping.”

“Pardon me! At least I've never worn leather trousers, like some people I could name!”

And they lived platonically ever after, with a minimum of dramatic speeches and a maximum of bickering, and many, many, cups of tea.


End file.
